During the cold soak period I've heard of many people using Dry Ice.
They've mentioned the following benefits:
1. Cool/maintain temperature of the must
2. Providing a layer of inert gas (CO2)
3. Bubbles coming off of the dry ice cause a mixing action

This seems like a grand idea, but I have the following concerns:
1. The last few blocks of dry ice I purchased had an oily residue on the
outside of the block. I wouldn't want to put this into my wine.
2. Would the must/juice which is in direct contact with the dry ice have
any negative affects due to the extreme coldness of frozen co2?

Has anyone had experiences with this process?

On Sep 23, 9:45 pm, Derek Slife > wrote:
> During the cold soak period I've heard of many people using Dry Ice.
> They've mentioned the following benefits:
> 1. Cool/maintain temperature of the must
> 2. Providing a layer of inert gas (CO2)
> 3. Bubbles coming off of the dry ice cause a mixing action
>
> This seems like a grand idea, but I have the following concerns:
> 1. The last few blocks of dry ice I purchased had an oily residue on the
> outside of the block. I wouldn't want to put this into my wine.
> 2. Would the must/juice which is in direct contact with the dry ice have
> any negative affects due to the extreme coldness of frozen co2?
>
> Has anyone had experiences with this process?

I used dry Ice last year. It didn't seem to help since the amount of
ice you need is quite large. How much wine are you making? You may
be better off with a supply of frozen water bottles that you can
submerge. (you may want to tie a string to them to get them back
out). The dry ice I had was not oily at all. it came as little 1
inch slugs, not in a block. -not sure if that matters.